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The Bitter Southerner

with Chuck Reece

The Bitter Southerner is a publication dedicated to sharing real stories about the real south. They have been an Acuity customer for almost two years. We sat down with the Founder and Editor-in-Chief Chuck Reece to discuss The Bitter Southerner’s story and how they have evolved over the past few years.

What inspired you to start The Bitter Southerner?

It was in late 2011. I was with my then fiancée (now wife) in New Orleans. We’ve always had an appreciation for craft cocktails, so we spent a good portion of the trip trying the best that NOLA had to offer. We were so impressed with the bars, bartenders, and cocktails. There was this rich blend of cultures and flavors, and you could tell these people had really mastered their craft.

A few weeks later I came across an article about the fifty best cocktail bars in the world. It was by Drinks International which is essentially the global Bible of the bar business. I was shocked to see that none of the New Orleans bars that we’d visited had made the list. And beyond that – there wasn’t even a venue in the entire American South represented.

It got me thinking. So much of the world – and even the rest of the country – knows so little about the south. And what they do know or what they think they know comes from stereotypes from movies and TV shows. But the south has so much more to offer than that.

That’s where the idea came in. Let’s start a publication to show people the south that I know and love. We started brainstorming ideas for the name. The light bulb moment was when we thought of “bitter,” because it represented our feelings on the way the south is perceived, but it also ties back to cocktails which inspired this whole concept in the first place.

I had a background in Journalism. My buddy Dave had experience in design, and together we started drafting up the first idea. We were both working full-time jobs, so this became a side project. There were a lot of long nights, but our passion paid off. Our goal was to publish one feature story every Tuesday for an entire year, and I’m so proud to say that we published fifty-two really good long form feature stories all on our own.

Have there been any memorable milestones along the way?

On our 1 year anniversary we did a membership drive, very much like public radio. That was really memorable. A couple of years later, we formed a partnership with Community Newspapers Inc. in Athens, and that was the first time that we had a partner that could bring the business discipline and processes that we needed to take us to the next level. Along the way we also started our General Store. There’s some pretty cool merchandise in there, and all of it funds the creatives who work on our projects. Last fall our first print publication came out, which is exciting in itself, but we were even more thrilled when it sold out! And along the way we’ve created a passionate community. That has been the best part.

What has been your favorite story to-date?

Phew! That is tough. We have had some great pieces come out over the years. We work with some really talented folks. But I do have one that comes to mind. One of my favorite parts of this job is having the opportunity to develop young talent and giving them a place to shine. I used to serve on the board of directors for The Red & Black – the University of Georgia student newspaper. I specifically recall after one meeting, the managing editor of the paper approached me and said that he had a story idea for me. It’s called A Carolina Dog, and it’s been one of the most widely read stories on our site for the last four years.

How did you come across Acuity?

When we started working with Community Newspapers Inc. and tightening up our processes, we realized that we needed to outsource our back office tasks. We searched around and considered a handful of companies, but ultimately Acuity was the best fit for us.

What about Acuity makes it a good fit for The Bitter Southerner?

Up until the print publication last fall, our entire business had existed online. Our site is on Squarespace, and our General Store is on Shopify. We were pulling financial data from a handful of different sources, but Acuity made this easy. Their ability to streamline the process was really the deciding factor for me. They also got us set up with tools like Bill.com to help with payments and other tasks.

What has been your favorite part about working with Acuity?

Honestly, it’s the people. You have one dedicated person to lead your account, and we’ve gotten to them know them and trust them. And if they do have to switch teams around, they make sure you’re taken care of in the transition. They really prioritize the service piece, and that’s a good feeling when they’re handling something as important as your business’ financials.

The Bitter Southerner

Sequr

As a self-proclaimed nerd, Andrew Eddy began designing mobile applications and websites in college. Though he’s no stranger to the startup spotlight, this year has been incredibly significant in his entrepreneurial journey. We were excited to have the chance to sit down with him to reflect on all the madness:

Any experiences in particular that helped Sequr grow?

Yep. We had the awesome opportunity to participate in TechStars Atlanta this year. It’s a three month program in one of the coolest spaces in Atlanta – Ponce City Market. The resources we gained from that experience are invaluable – the perks, the network of incredible business leaders you have access to. Cox is the corporate partner and they go above and beyond to serve as a resource for just about anything. TechStars was instrumental in getting us to where we are today.

Sounds incredible. How does it feel to be one of the first Atlanta graduates from techstars?

Incredible. But those 90 days were not easy. It was one of the most stressful and trying times of my life. Whether we wanted to or not, they were going to drag us through the hard stuff of building a company. But at the end, we were well-equipped to hit the ground running and scale our business. It all capped off with Demo Day – the culmination of three hard months of work where we got to share our business and our journey. It was absolutely electrifying.

TechStars Demo Day was the very same week as Venture Atlanta. Talk about pitch overload…tell us about it.

I was nervous for the Demo Day pitch. But for Venture Atlanta, I wasn’t nervous at all. I think pitching to a room full of family and friends was more intimidating than pitching to a room of big time investors. I mean, pitching is never easy or relaxing, but it’s an important step for getting us where we need to be.

For sure! Speaking of…congrats on closing your latest round. What’s next for Sequr?

Obviously a lot of moving pieces. This round was solely dedicated to spinning up and ramping up sales for 2017. We’re in a good place product wise – always adding on functionality and building on new features. But right now, it’s important to start scaling the business itself. We’ve definitely found a product/market fit. Over the next 90-180 days we’ll be ramping up our sales team and pushing our product out to the national market.

Want to read the full story of Eddy’s entrepreneurial journey? Click here.

Sequr

Azalea Health

with Baha Zeidan

As the co-founder, CEO and leading force behind new technology development at Azalea Health, Baha Zeidan is a real-life health IT superhero. After graduating from Valdosta State University and climbing the medical laboratory ladder, Baha was ready for a new challenge. Guided by his passion for cloud computing, mobile development, device computing and big data analytics, Baha set off on an epic entrepreneurial journey.

We got a chance to capture a few highlights in a recent interview. Take a look:

Tell me a bit about what you do at Azalea Health.

Azalea Health offers a fully integrated EHR, practice management and RCM billing service solutions to physicians and specialty practices of all sizes. We do the heavy lifting on the practice management side so providers can focus more on patient care. Thanks to new innovations and government regulation, healthcare technology is constantly evolving, and our goal as a company is to help the industry navigate those changes.

What initially sparked your interest and landed you in the HealthIT space?

It was actually accidental. I was working as an intern in the IT department of a medical laboratory company. I was eventually offered a full-time position and worked with that company for seven years. It was a great experience and I learned a lot but eventually hit a glass ceiling and decided that it was time to do something new – something innovative and disruptive.

What spurred you to create Azalea Health? Did you have an “aha” moment or did it happen organically?

I would say the inspiration came through a network of “aha” moments rather than just one. My co-founder, Dan Henry, and I attended Valdosta State University. Doug Swords is the 3rd co-founder, we both use to workout at the YMCA in town. I remember us casually talking about starting a business together one day. Once we discovered that the health IT industry was behind compared to the financial IT industry – lacking digitization, systems and solid infrastructure – we decided that was our chance, and we dove in. It’s been a crazy ride ever since.

Azalea Health

PuzzleSocial

with Jeb Balise

With a passion for crossword puzzles and an MBA from Fordham University in hand, Jeb Balise started New York City based PuzzleSocial, a company whose mission was to get as many people as it could to solve a crossword puzzle each day. Six years and one acquisition later, Jeb continues that same mission. We loved having the chance to chat with the creator of the most solved and top grossing daily crossword app in the world. Here’s what we found out.

What spurred you on to create PuzzleSocial? Was there an “aha” moment?

I’ve enjoyed puzzles of all kinds for as long as I can remember and I started solving the New York Times crossword during college to procrastinate doing homework. After I graduated, the documentary Wordplay came out which featured a crossword puzzle tournament so I started competing in the tournament, and getting my butt kicked – I should add – but having a lot of fun in the process.

Because of this, I was fortunate enough to meet the very small group of people who make the entire world’s crossword puzzles (yes, that’s a thing).. I found myself thinking, “What if we could create a mobile version of this experience?” I knew there was a big distribution opportunity in mobile that the world hadn’t seen before. I decided to go for it. That’s when PuzzleSocial was born.

What does your daily routine look like?

Coffee, gym, walk my dog then it’s off to the races. If there are no fires to help put out then I spend some quality time working on the road map and the features we’re building next. . At 4:00PM or 5:00PM I crash and take a few hours off. Then from 9:00PM-12:00AM is when I get a lot of my work done.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken in your life or career?

Starting a company on the premise of crossword puzzles during a time when mobile gaming wasn’t getting a lot of funding was a huge risk for me and for my investors. Casual games were especially difficult to monetize when we were raising money, so it was difficult convincing people this was a good idea. I was rejected at least fifty times, but just because most people said “no” didn’t mean I wasn’t going to stop pitching the idea. Being an entrepreneur is having the confidence to keep trucking along and to keep fighting for your idea. There are no guarantees, you have to just keep moving forward.

PuzzleSocial

Acuity Services Used

Maki Fund

with Matt Jones

From dating to weddings and every startup in between, Matt Jones has found his Minimum Viable Product stride and leaves a wake of successful startups to prove it. His approach is unique and proven to work. Today, he is sharing with us a little bit about his journey.

You’ve got a growing roster of successful startups. How did you get started with all of this?

Well, I guess I’ll go way back.

I went to Northeastern University and kind of kept my head down there — working and studying. A couple years after college though, I was working a steady job but felt the urge to take the leap and step out on my own. I quit my job with literally nothing lined up. Through some early on networking I met Casey Gibbons, who is still my business partner today. He was an associate at a VC firm at the time and had an idea of how to revolutionize online dating. They were already working with a college student on the project but I said I wanted to help. So, my first real entrepreneurial gig was basically Tinder, before Tinder existed.

Nice. That’s quite a romantic start to your startup relationship.

Ha! It was playful and different back then. Online dating was still new and kind of taboo. We ended up raising money and moving to NYC along with Casey’s wife and future business partner, Marissa Gibbons. She went to Harvard Business School so… yea. She’s smart and is now an essential part of our team.

After moving to New York, the company gradually petered out. Casey and I looked at each other and thought “What now?” But when people heard that we were both back on the market, startups began to court us. It was then that we made the decision to sell ourselves as a package deal. We worked on a couple of contracts and waited until our next bright idea came along…

And it sounds like they came. What was your next startup?

We essentially stumbled into where we are today. During that phase of contracting out our time, Casey and I decided that our sweet spot was helping people get their ideas off the ground.

We had developed an approach or a method by which we could strategically build an MVP (minimal viable product). That’s where Maki Fund started.

Maki Fund is the vehicle that allows us to exercise that approach. Anyone can come to us with an idea and we’ll help them flush it out, determine what the MVP is and then provide development and engineering strategy & implementation.

We like to view ourselves as co-founders with our clients – they often hear us say “this shouldn’t take as long as you thought and you should pay us less.”

As growth hackers ourselves, we’re always so curious as to what tools other entrepreneurs are using to stay efficient. What do you have in your bag?

Lately we use a lot of slack – even when we are in the same office. We aren’t always there so slack is the glue that holds us together with a lot of our projects.

To be honest, I don’t have a lot of tricks up my sleeves in this way but I will say that we definitely consider Acuity one of our “can’t live without it” tools.

In the early days of Maki Fund, we were literally doing everything. I was the bookkeeper – operating Quickbooks for Mac, balancing statements and trying to reconcile our billing without any experience or know-how. Eventually we reached a point where time was limited and we needed to focus on our core business. We searched around and eventually landed on Acuity because they really got our business.

They’ve been nothing integral in scaling both Maki Fund and Riley & Grey. They really are more than just bookkeeping to us, helping with all of our projects, strategy and trend forecasting. We also try to automate as much as we can and they’ve made that process very easy.

Maki Fund

Acuity Services Used

CodeGuard

with David Moeller

An avid life learner, David Moeller thrives in a challenging environment with all things tech. The team of nine at CodeGuard know how to hustle having over 75,000 customers since their start in 2010. Each day they work to help everyone from individuals and startups to enterprise level companies back up their web content. David has a wealth of experience and a knack for always wanting to learn something new, which helped him launch CodeGuard into the successful company it is today. Here’s his story:

How was CodeGuard created? Was it all of a sudden or more organic?

I was actually building a website while completing an investment banking internship, and all of a sudden the hard drive crashed. I freaked out because we needed it for an upcoming spot on the reality show, American Inventor. As you can imagine, I panicked. But at the same time two thoughts came to mind during that chaos:

1.There’s got to be a better solution.

2. I wonder if there are any other boneheads like me that lose their website’s information.

I knew I wanted to solve this problem and make sure I never lost my hard work ever again.

Would you consider yourself a forerunner in this industry?

Yes — we were and are definitely establishing a new industry. At the time, website backup was not a widely discussed solution and most people didn’t even know companies like us existed as a vertical. Now we have a number of competitors in our space, but they all focus on different niches than CodeGuard. We are still paving the way.

How does CodeGuard work?

First, we connect to your server that powers your website, take in all the data, and store it in the cloud. We look at the servers once a day or more to monitor any changes or red flags that something has gone wrong. If anything changes, we back it up and store it in the cloud. If anything goes wrong, you can restore your site based off of the previous information that has already been backed up. It’s all completed through an open connection so there’s no need for installations or a large setup process. Basically it’s exactly what I wish I had access to during my hard-drive-crash-freak-out.

Our customers rave about how fast and reliable our restoring ability is. Over half of the restores completed on CodeGuard have been initially caused by someone accidentally deleting a file or a file becoming infected with malware. We often like to give the example that if someone were to update their WordPress plugin and their site goes down (which is a common occurrence), they can use CodeGuard to restore it to the previous version instead of having to quickly troubleshoot a plugin problem that you may or may not know how to handle. Instead, you’re back up and running in no time.

What made finding a financial partner so important to growing CodeGuard?

The number one reason we needed a financial partner was to navigate our cash to accrual accounting, which can be really difficult to calculate. On top of that, we have big partners who pay monthly, as well as lots of retail customers, so revenue recognition is not an easy thing to come by. The books were messy and hard to keep up with, and Acuity has been a great partner to grow with us from zero to over $100,000 in MRR. They keep us on track and we know we can trust them.

As any startup with investors knows, our books need to be accurate so our investor and board can see how the business is truly performing. Acuity knows this space really well and has strategically helped us navigate the numbers and ensure they are accurate. They’re really responsive, so when our partners or board members have questions I know I can get answers quickly. Their price is fair – to be able to depend on your books and know they are completely accurate at all times? That is invaluable to me.

CodeGuard

Acuity Services Used

Tech Square Ventures

with Blake Patton

As a leader and serial entrepreneur in the Atlanta community, Blake Patton loves being around other startups and finding new ways to help them succeed. The team of three at Tech Square Ventures helps startups each and every day to align them with investors and build the companies of their dreams. Blake has inspired and helped many startups in the Atlanta and Southeast community to grow profitable businesses. Here’s his story:

As an entrepreneur, what’s your typical morning look like?

Usually I am woken up by my two kiddos. With an 8 and 5 year old, there isn’t any time for sleeping in. I’m a pretty big fan of breakfast too, so I try to kick most mornings off with breakfast meetings. It’s a great way to start your day and you can stay in touch with more people in the community.

It seems you’ve always been interested the tech startup space. What do you love about it?

The Southeast tech startup scene and I have a great relationship – we’re like eggs and bacon. We just go together. I enjoy that everyday I get to help build tech companies and serve others in this wonderful community. I have a passion for it and how could I not — I get to help entrepreneurs reach their dreams and create financial success. Plus, the Southeast is a very underserved region since only 3% is invested in this area. It was a great opportunity for growth.

What tools helped you scale your business?

It all boils down to managing your information and relationships. The tools we use to help fulfill those needs are CRM processes for opportunities and relationships, and tools to access data and understand their markets. Our key to success is all about the relationship, so we mostly look for tools that allow us to have more time to do just that.

It’s also helpful to have connections in the community that we can refer our startups to, like Acuity. We know they are a trusted partner that will always deliver for our clients. We like for our startups to use Acuity so that we can have confidence that the startups’ time is being spent wisely (because the last thing you have as a startup is extra time to waste). We know the financials and reporting will be correct and our investors rely on this information. It’s always a great feeling to know I can call either Matthew or Kenji directly since they are both so involved in the startup community in Atlanta. They really understand any situation and can provide solid advice.

Being a venture capitalist means you wear a bunch of hats; we have to be good at helping our companies succeed while running our own business and managing relationships with our own investors. Acuity allows us to focus on all those activities and produce our financials and reports so that our communications with our investors are reliable – it’s a time saver that we can trust and that’s priceless.

Where would you like to see Tech Square Ventures go in the next 5-10 years?

When I launched TSV, I called it that because of all the activity we’ve seen here reflects the emergence in ATL. I wanted to build a sustainable VC firm that is able to continue and invest in these early stage companies and continue to help more entrepreneurs reach their dreams and beyond in the first round of funding. We’re a little bit of a startup ourselves because we want to make our initial investors a great return. It’s a startup helping startups.

How do you keep a healthy work/life balance?

It’s definitely hard to do but if you’re doing something you love and you love the people in your life, you’re going to naturally find a balance. My advice would be to focus on your purpose and passion while at the same time don’t forget the people that have spurred and cheered you on to that point. It’s more about being conscious about your relationships and growing as a person.

Tech Square Ventures

Acuity Services Used

rented.

with Andrew McConnell

Look up “entrepreneur” in the dictionary, and you may find a picture of Andrew McConnell (or if it’s not there, it should be). Andrew has been in the business of redefining today’s ideas of property management contracts and fees through rented.com, a world-class marketplace for competitive short-term rentals. As a Harvard and Cambridge graduate with plenty of global enterprise experience under his belt, Andrew is changing the rental management industry and creating a better experience for all. Here’s his story:

As entrepreneurs ourselves, we love knowing how other entrepreneurs start their day. What does your morning routine look like?

Well, my wife and I have a new baby, so our day starts based on her schedule – anywhere between 3:00 A.M. – 6:00 A.M. My wife is an attorney, so it was important that we partner together those first weeks in order to both be able to work. She stayed home with the baby the first six weeks, and then I’ve taken over the last six. So after I feed the baby and get things set up for her, I spend about half an hour catching up on emails and anything that happened to pop up overnight. From there, I bring the baby with me into the home office and start work. Depending on the day, I’ll be in video conference meetings with the team or conducting executive one-on-one meetings. If I’m not in meetings, I typically save my mornings for writing – lately, it’s been a mix between industry-specific topics for our blog and articles drawing a parallel between startups and parenthood. After lunch, I typically head to the gym and then have all my West Coast meetings in the afternoon. Then we have dedicated family time from 6:30 P.M. – 9 P.M. but typically my wife and I both go back online after 9 P.M. to get a few more things done. We try to be in bed by 11 P.M.

Full-time dad and CEO? That’s a lot to fit into one day! Tell me…what spurred you on to createrented.comin the first place?

It was really a single conversation; a light bulb kind of moment. In January of 2012, I was in Turks and Caicos with my family and overheard two vacation property owners telling horror stories of all the time and hassle involved in self-managing their properties. I immediately emailed my now co-founder Mickey Kropf and fleshed the idea out – we thought about what it would look like for managers to bid against each other to buy an entire year from the homeowner for a guaranteed amount. The idea being the homeowners got the highest amount of money without risk, and the best managers would ultimately win once they put their money where their mouth was. Mickey hopped on board and rented was born. rented.com is now in 17 countries, 38 states and over 300 cities around the world.

Now, I saw that you went to Harvard and worked for McKinsey & Co. as well as Axiom. How does all of that experience play into your business methods?

I took a little bit away from each experience for sure. At both Harvard Law and McKinsey, I learned how to break down business problems into components to better solve them. Because McKinsey was such a large organization, the main thing I took away was how to properly run a business and problem solve. At Axiom, I had a little more freedom to implement my ideas and make an impact.

How was it to go from very cushy jobs at McKinsey and Axiom to a bootstrap startup?

I learned that taking something from 0 employees to 1 employee is a very different skill than getting from 1 to 10 or 10 to 100. Both Mickey and I had professional wives that brought in enough income to allow us to pour our time and finances into rented.com with little risk. My wife and I started our marriage by putting one of our paychecks every month into savings, so when I wasn’t bringing in any income for two years, we weren’t starving.

That’s a really smart financial move. What tools did use to help you scale your business once you got it off the ground?

Honestly, I knew nothing about starting a company, and a lot of it was trial and error. We thought we needed all of these platforms and processes to execute our ideas, but an advisor helped us realize that we did not have to develop every single piece of technology to succeed. Rather, we needed to determine what our core competency was, and build the BEST technology around that. For most other things, like payment processing, there were great providers already out there. We use Google Apps for most things, but we use HubSpot for marketing automation and Salesforce for our CRM. We started using Acuity for payroll and then payment processing. As we grew, we needed help keeping up with our books. Now we have a part-time CFO and part-time Controller. Acuity has been able to come alongside us every step of the way to be the consistent expert through every stage of growth. They have been an irreplaceable part of our business who has definitely been able to grow and scale with us.

rented.

Acuity Services Used

Sunrise App

With Jeremy Le Van

From a small town in Belgium, Jeremy Le has already seen more than some may dream of in a lifetime. A world travel and brave entrepreneur, Jeremy set his course at the young age of 22 when he decided to leave his friends and family behind in search for something great. And Jeremy found great. As the founder of popular calendar app, Sunrise, Jeremy grew a business that, in just under 5 years, was purchased by Microsoft for more than $100 million.

We met you after you launched Sunrise app, but you have a history of being a part of wildly successful startups – how did you get your start?

When I was 22 I decided to uproot and take a chance at life in the States. My plan was to get a good degree, then move back to Europe. So I moved from Belgium to San Francisco where I went into web design and mobile apps. I thought I would only go for 2 years, but realized I may be staying longer than expected when I got my first job as a designer at Seesmic. Soon after I started, Seesmic was acquired by Hootsuite. After that I decided I had seen enough of San Francisco, so I moved out to New York where I joined this small company you may have heard of ….called Four Square.

So you went from Seesmic/Hootsuite to Four Square. How big was Four Square when you started? Did you have any idea it would grow so quickly?

I started in 2011 as a mobile designer. At that time, there were about 60 people on the team. When I left just a year later, there were more than 200 employees. I loved my time at Four Square. I didn’t realize it then, but I think the reason I was there was to meet my partner of Sunrise, Pierre Valade. We both spoke French so it was an immediate connection. We were inspired by what was going on in San Francisco and New York, so we decided to leave Foursquare and start Sunrise.

Sunrise app raised money and grew fast. What do you think helped you scale so quickly?

Our user base was growing, so we realized we needed to be intentional with which people joined our team. We saw we had a gap in our financial management and our team did not want, or have the resources, to handle it all. So we found AcuityComplete to help us achieve our goals.

What made finding a financial partner so important to your business?

Well, we had worked with an accountant in NYC that was not on top of things. They were skilled at some of the basics, but it became clear they wouldn’t be able to scale. After all, they were only one person and our business was outgrowing their abilities. We realized we needed more advanced services so we initially worked with a company in San Francisco, but they were not structured well and left us with a ton of problems. Sunrise was in a mess, and accounting can dramatically impact your business. So we sought out AcuityComplete. Within a few months of working with their team, they fixed the problems that the other company created. We were beyond grateful. They scaled with us as we grew and played a major role in helping us prepare for the Microsoft acquisition. Not only did they help us prepare, but they walked us through every single step of acquisition process as a business partner, not just service provider.

I’m honestly not sure where we would have been without Acuity’s help. Their team allowed us to run more efficiently and helped us navigate some very important financial decisions.

Sunrise App

Acuity Services Used

WonderRoot

With Chris Appleton

As a leader and voice of progressive change right here in Atlanta, Chris Appleton is no stranger to the challenges and rewards of forging your own way. One of the three founders behind the influential non-profit art organization, WonderRoot, Chris has helped drive strategic growth and develop partnerships that are helping inspire positive social change in the Atlanta community. Here is his story:

Where did WonderRoot find it’s start?

WonderRoot was first started as an idea in 2002 by myself and two friends, Alex West & Whit Wisebram. We grew up in the same community here in Atlanta – I actually went to elementary school with Alex.

At around the age of 18 we found ourselves interested in ways that artists could play a role in building a more thriving, equitable, and just Atlanta. Personally, we held artists in high regard in their ability to tell stories, persuade people, and help us think about complex issues. We grew more and more interested in how art and artists played an important role in progressing social change.

We all three connected on a values-based approach to creating a better city for all people. That is what we rallied around. The mission and vision of the organization. I would guess we spent most of our early 20s (2002-2006) scheming, and not really acting on, but believing in and building the vision.

Artists playing an important role in social change – That’s powerful. What did it look like to take such meaningful work from dream to reality?

About 8 years ago we launched WonderRoot to the public with the mission to unite artists and community to inspire positive social change. What that looks like for us here in atlanta is supporting artists who have working professional careers. We connect with civic agencies (whether that is school, police, the Belt Line, etc…) and develop arts-based solutions to address the work those civic partners are seeking to do.

As an entrepreneur, what are the biggest changes you’ve experienced since WonderRoot opened it’s doors?
Alex and I were talking about this a few nights ago… One of the things that happens as the business grows is that it is no longer just friends going to work together every day. We’ve built a team around us who are invested in the mission and the organization. But at times, you miss the days when it wasn’t work – It was 3 friends going to change the world.

With the rate at which WonderRoot has grown and expanded, that makes a lot of sense. Now, are you ready for something completely different?

What does an average weekday morning look like for Chris Appleton?

Every morning I meditate for about 15 minutes. I have a cup of coffee and then head out to the office. Most of my time spent during the day is in meetings inside and outside the organization.

This happens to be one of my biggest challenge because there is a lot of work to be done, in addition to talking about the work we aspire to do.

So, no pets?

No pets. All I can do is take care of myself.

Haha understood. What is the most rewarding part of your day?

Every day I go to work, even a decade after it all began, I am still inspired by this work. I am surrounded by people who are inspired by learning how to build better communities. The folks I get to spend my time with, even when we are talking about hard things, are people who want to see a better Atlanta. That is very motivating – and sustaining.

Sometimes being an entrepreneur can be an isolating endeavor, but not for me.

It sounds like you are doing it right, then. Along the same lines, how do you go about keeping a healthy work/life balance?

I am really interested in the notion of work life integration. So many entrepreneurs start businesses or organizations with really sincere aspirations to do something that is meaningful.

My experience, a decade in, is that the kind of change we are trying to make at WonderRoot isn’t done in a 40 hour work week. I do believe it is important to take care of my physical, spiritual, and mental health. However, I think that this can happen successfully outside of the work/life binary nature.

If we can find ways of integrating our personal, professional, civic, family values – Whatever is important to us personally – We are more likely to find success. It is when we try to compartmentalize all these that things tend to not find their way. I think balance suggests a compartmentalization, and I don’t necessarily agree with that.

Wow – That was an unexpected and profound answer. I think that entrepreneurs everywhere will glean a lot of wisdom from your outlook on living an integrated life.

Do you use any apps, tools that help you accomplish your day-to-day tasks?

Coffee haha. To be honest, not really.

I am somebody who has not relied on many tech advances… My first cell phone ever was the iPhone. I got it when I was 25. I am 32 turning 33 now. So you can do the math.

I keep a tidy calendar and stay up to date on emails, and that works for me.

I will say, one of the great challenges of being an entrepreneur is that you can’t do it all yourself. you need help in the day-to-day. Finding partners like Acuity who can help build your team as you’re getting off the ground and then scale with you as your needs grow – it’s invaluable. I wish I had found Acuity several years earlier.

What is the biggest risk you have taken as an entrepreneur?

When we signed the lease on the Arts Center 9 years ago (the building that we currently operate out of ), I think we had like 2 months rent in the bank. We certainly didn’t have any money for payroll. But, we came to that moment and said
“We’ve been talking about this for years… and at some point we have to make the leap.”

I am sure that every business advisor was telling us not to sign a lease on the building, but we were young and we had the privilege to take risks… So we opened the door. And crazy enough, people started walking through.

The immediate response and demand for what we were doing bolstered us during those first couple of years when experiencing the cash flow challenges that so many startups do. But, you know, it was the most fun I have ever had. Running this arts center with my best friends. Believing there was nothing else in the world that could stop us. That’s the good stuff.

You’ve been at this for a long time now. Any words of advice for the entrepreneurs reading your interview today?

When hard decisions arise, revisit your core values.

One of the things that I love about our staff is that they are deeply invested in our core values and principles. Even when we are making day to day decisions, we look at each one through the lens of our values. It helps us to remain consistent which is really critical to success.

WonderRoot

Acuity Services Used

LovePop

With Wombi Rose

Well I think we should kick off by talking about the most obvious excitement – How crazy was it to prepare for your premiere on Shark Tank?
Man – we’ve been doing all kind of things to first ensure that our site will be up (and stay up) when the estimated 100k people hit our page all at once this week. We’re doing everything from running site audits to preparing inventory to meet demand. It’s been fun to reach out to friends, family and our local community to be sure they tune in. We can wait to show the world what we are doing through this show.

Your journey to creating a unique gifting experience hasn’t been a conventional one. As aspiring naval architects and marine engineers, what inspired you and John to dive into the world of paper art?

It has been a big shift from ship designers into the world of paper. But it all started when we went on a trip to Vietnam in business school. That is where we discovered and fell in love with geo-gami.

Our approach and technique is completely different because we understand the structure. We view and design these cards the same way we would design a ship – but instead of welding, we use glue.

That’s incredible. Instead of building ships, you build gifting experiences. So what was your final push to create the wildly successful LovePop brand?
We thought that geo-gami was awesome. But what really inspired us to start LovePop was seeing the powerful reactions people had to these types of products and how much they wanted to share it with other people. That genuine enthusiasm was the tipping point for us.

Now, almost 2 years into the LovePop journey, we have pioneered a new style we call slice-gami. Slice-gami is a combo of the art and science behind paper crafting. Slice refers to the structure, engineering and software of laser cutting. Gami refers to the art – going back to Japanese paper folding.

Together we use slice-gami to be the only company redefining gifting expectations, with a goal to surprise and delight.

Speaking of great combos – how did you and John meet?

We actually met as freshman at Webb Institute on our first day of college in 2005. We then re-connected at Harvard Business School. We were about 6 months in when we discovered the geo-gami style.

We started this business in February of 2014, so we have known each other for about 9 years now.

What would you say are the biggest benefits of starting LovePop with John, vs going it alone?

People will often say that starting a business is like a roller coaster, but you can’t really get what this means until you are on it. It is so extreme. When you are spending all day long investing your heart and soul into a company, anything that goes wrong absolutely crushes you and anything that goes well makes you highly elated. The
chemicals in your brain have a hard time keeping up with these ups and downs.

Having a partner is the best way to keep you grounded during the highs and lift you up during the lows. Simply having someone to talk to who gets it.

As an entrepreneur, you are forced to make so many decisions every day. It’s so important to have someone you can bounce questions off. I can’t imagine starting a business by yourself.

Speaking of roles, what are some of the important roles that have helped you scale so quickly?

John has a million jobs – he is essentially our HR, finance, IT, retail, production, design, operations, and fulfillment department -all in one. So without a partner like Acuity, there is no way that he would be able to get through the accounting function.

We actually tried to work with 4 different accounting firms before we ended up with Acuity. They are the only ones who have been able to keep up with us.

It is hard to keep up with a young and growing company. We are constantly changing systems and modifying our processes. It’s hard to find systems that work. We are always slightly changing our business model. It seems like every month we have one new payment processor or operational channel onboarded or discarded. Acuity is the first company we’ve worked with that has been able to keep up with our books.

Scaling is not easy to do – it sounds like having a partner like Acuity who gets it and can scale with you has been integral to your business.

How large is your team now?

After almost 2 years in business, we have about 15 people in our HQ, 20 people selling, and about 60 in our product facility in Vietnam which we built out specifically for LovePop.

It is so satisfying to watch your team grow. Not just partners and co-founders, but the whole team. This would be pretty boring if it was me in a room doing all the work.

LovePop

Acuity Services Used

Prong

With Jesse Pliner

Jesse Pliner is the determined co-founder of the innovative consumer electronics company, Prong. A Pittsburgh native, Pliner caught the entrepreneurial bug early on in life and his passion was fueled when his path crossed with that of co-founder, Lloyd Gladstone. After many nights of big ideas and brainstorms, the two decided to take a risk and launch Prong in early 2014. That risk paid off. Here is their story:

Your team has grown considerably since we first met you – but how did it all start?

My partner, Lloyd Gladstone, and I had a big group of friends from the same college, though we were all there at different times. One weekend several years ago, Lloyd invited a few friends to his family’s house in the Hamptons…and who can turn down an invite to the Hamptons? So I joined, and Lloyd and I hit it off. We immediately found ourselves lost in conversation about the world’s problems and how to solve them. We knew we wanted to start a business, but we did not have a particular idea in mind. So we just started hanging out multiple times a week with whiteboards talking about possible apps and businesses. At the time, he was in law school and I was in finance. I remember coming up with the idea for Prong while sitting in class. I told Lloyd about my idea, and Prong started shortly after.

How long did it take for you to bring your first product from concept to reality?

The beginning of our very first idea (the PocketPlug) actually started about four years ago. Since we’re in the business of hardware, there was a considerable period of time where we were conceptualizing prototypes, developing the actual product, and figuring out what to source and where to source it from. Then we launched an extremely successful Kickstarter campaign in March of 2013, raising $130k in just one month. After our Kickstarter success, I moved to China for a while to set up our supply chain. I hired a guy to be my feet on the ground and then finally, we shipped our first product, the PocketPlug, in 2014.

Wow – so many questions. Let’s start with the Kickstarter campaign. What was your approach to Kickstarter that lead to such success?

Well, to be honest, there were a lot of things we did wrong when launching our Kickstarter. But, we knew that we had a great idea that solved a problem so many identified with. So rather than trying to wing it, we invested some money and created a partnership with a great PR Firm who created a video for us. We posted the video (actually featuring a completely fake and non-functional prototype) and before we knew it, we were garnering huge amounts of support.

Incredible – now how long did you live in China? And how did that adventure come about?

Ha – I am not sure we have time for the entire China saga, but long story short, the team we worked with continued to make promises that were never delivered. After countless, frustrating trips, I made the plunge and moved over there in October, 2012.The first day in China, I went right to the factory and asked “what is the schedule?”. We had promised to deliver our kickstarter product in August, and it was now October. I had to be pretty stern with the team and timelines. Each day I would talk with the team and set deadlines/timelines for what needed to get done. I worked hard at building a relationship with them, and eventually, it worked out.

Was this the biggest hurdle of bringing a hardware product to market?

It honestly seems every stage was a different hurdle: finding an engineering team that could deliver, managing unforeseen changes and roadblocks, and ensuring all of the pieces (literally) come together at the right time. The past 24 months has definitely been a rollercoaster. It’s funny when we think back on the fact that we came up with the PocketPlug when we had no idea how to make product. Sometimes it feels like a miracle that we are here today – but that is the magic of entrepreneurship. Sometimes, despite the odds, you build something that works.

It sounds like you have your work cut out for you with the development and distribution of Prong products – do you have any daily habits that help you keep it all together through the day/week?

I wake up around 5am or 6am and walk my baby, beast of a puppy. He is a one-year-old, 75lb golden doodle named Griffin (and also the face of our customer service team, griffin@prong.com). After our walk, I answer a bunch of emails from China before they head to bed. Then I’ll flick on the news and get ready for work.Griffin and I take a 7am train from Williamsburg to Brooklyn to the dog park across the street from the Prong office. He plays while I catch up with more emails. Im helped by a Starbucks Venti Cappuccino with 1 pump of vanilla and side of banana nut bread …warmed up of course.I try to browse Google news to make sure I’m caught up with the latest, then spend the rest of the day reviewing our portals, overseeing product development and checking our bookkeeping to see what came through.

It sounds like keeping track of the financials is a really high priority for you every day.

Absolutely. When starting a business, the last thing you are thinking is “how can we keep our books reconciled?!”. Honestly, when other entrepreneurs ask us for tips, it always comes down to “just sign up for bookkeeping…right now.” Because let’s be honest, the last thing you want is to be sitting there at year end, having to reconcile your books. That’s an unfortunate misuse of valuable time.AcuityComplete has allowed us to stay on top of our finances and ahead of the game. They have been an unbelievably valuable partner in helping us grow.

And finally… What’s the biggest risk you have ever taken?

Doing this. Every day is a challenge…but I am all in. And that is a risk that is undeniably worth it.